Crumpled

Crumpled. An onomatopoeia. Two funny words. Paper is crumpled. People are crumpled. It has a sound– I can hear it now.

People– when people are crumpled, they are messy. It’s a funny and perfectly descriptive word. Sometimes I feel like I have an entire month that is crumpled. To me it signifies being disheveled, not having it all together, battling just to stay afloat. Wrinkled clothing, messy hair, belongings all over the place. Can’t remember to finish tasks, the frustration– the representation of balled up paper. Ideas that went awry.

Sometimes it’s taking that paper and smoothing it out. It’s about knowing that some ideas aren’t rejected. When my life isn’t running smoothly, crumpled doesn’t mean throw-away, to me it’s just a temporary state of being.

We all have periods of crumple. Eventually we straighten out. We have the fresh appearance, the crisp white sheets of paper begging for new ideas.

Crumple means in action– in the trenches– slogging it out. Crumpled means making those mistakes and owning it. Learning to crease out the wrinkles and setting the record straight. The antithesis of crumpled. But crumpled must happen in order to iron it out. Great word.